Filled it back up with water from the tap.” He had to stop and breathe.

“So it would look like it was still there.”

The floor seemed to drop away beneath me.

“Why,” I managed.

“Why would she do that?”

It took him a moment.

“She said the real refills cost too much,” he whispered, “for a man who was going to die anyway.”

I set the bottle down on the nightstand, the way you set down something that has become evidence.